BATMAN #251 & #255

"THE JOKER'S FIVE-WAY REVENGE!"
Story: Denny O'Neil | Art: Neal Adams | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

Neal Adams' brief time with Batman comes to an end in these two tales, and the first teams him with his most frequent collaborator, Denny O'Neil, for the return of Batman's best-known villain. As discussed when we looked at "Half An Evil" a while back, my understanding that in the late sixties, after the Batman TV show ended and DC wanted to reestablish the character as something closer to his puply roots, there was a conscious decision made to retire the classic rogues gallery for a time, to allow the campy screen versions to fade from memory before reintroducing them. Now, I have no idea whether this is true, but in any case the Joker returns here four or so years after his last appearance.

I've said before that the Joker isn't my favorite Batman villain -- but, nonetheless, for my money "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge!" is pretty much the quintessential Batman story, and probably one of the few I might show somebody to introduce them to what exactly I believe Batman is all about. To wit: we have, as noted above, the best-known member of Batman's rogues gallery. We have Commissioner Gordon summoning Batman to the scene of a murder for investigative assistance. We have Batman setting out to track down the Joker, using his detective skills to do so. We have him demonstrating his "ultra-competence" as he easily catches up with a hoodlum who believes he's given Batman the slip. Yet we also have a fallible Batman, who's clubbed from behind by that same hood after turning his back on him. But most importantly, we have a Batman who refuses to give up; who, when thrown into a death trap by the Joker, uses his wits and athleticism to find a way out.

BATMAN #245 & DETECTIVE COMICS #429

"THE BRUCE WAYNE MURDER CASE!"
Story: Denny O'Neil | Art: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

The Ra's al Ghul saga is done, the villain has been brought to justice, but there's one loose end yet to tie up. Back when Batman started his crusade against the Demon in issue 242, he faked Bruce Wayne's death via a plane accident in South America. Now it's time to resurrect Wayne, but the deed is complicated when two rival political bosses get involved, one of them accusing the other of murdering Wayne. What ensues is a mystery Batman doesn't want to solve. He must, in order to bring Bruce Wayne back from the dead, but he knows that to do so will pave the way to get a dirty politician into office. However Batman does what he must, and by the story's final page, Gotham is as corrupt as ever and Bruce Wayne is alive again.

This is one of those stories that I feel should be included in any printing of TALES OF THE DEMON, but at the same time I understand why it isn't. Ra's al Ghul is never mentioned at any point; the entire saga is pretty much ignored. But it does show us how Batman brings Bruce Wayne back to life following his "death", tying up the one remaining plot thread from the O'Neil/Adams opus of preceding issues. But at the same time, TALES does not include issue 242 either, and that one is far more essential -- plus, without it, this story is even less important. If you're not gonna print the story that actually does further the main plot, why print a story that wraps up a sub-plot from it?

Otherwise, this is a decent story -- a nice palate cleanser after the globetrotting of the previous installments, it plants Batman firmly back in Gotham and sets him against that staple of his early seventies adventures: normal, everyday criminals in business suits.

BATMAN #243 & #244

"THE LAZARUS PIT!" | "THE DEMON LIVES AGAIN!"
Script: Denny O'Neil | Art: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

The Ra's al Ghul saga reaches its climax here, as Batman and his ragtag teams track the Demon to Switzerland. There, Lo Ling spies Talia and Ubu in a throng of people. The pair escapes, but Batman and friends, joined by championship skier Molly Post, pursue and enter al Ghul's stronghold -- only to find him dead. The groups departs with Talia, but al Ghul is secretly lowered by an automatic mechanism into a pool which restores his life. He emerges from his chalet and escapes with Talia.

Batman's teammmates are all injured or otherwise disabled, leaving the Darknight Detective alone as he tracks al Ghul and his daughter to the desert. There, al Ghul challenges Batman to a saber duel, but a scorpion's sting takes the Caped Crusader out of the fight. The Demon leaves Batman for dead, unaware that Talia has slipped her love an antidote. Batman appears in al Ghul's tent later, knocks him out, and hauls him away to justice.

I have to admit, I have mixed feelings regarding this story. Is it an epic? Yes, I'd say so. Globetrotting to exotic locales, a saber duel in the desert, a dramatic kiss to finish the story... it's all great stuff. But, much as I like it, I sometimes feel that it could've been so much more. I suspect that's due in large part to having seen the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES adaptation, "The Demon's Quest", prior to reading these issues. Because of that, my opinion of the original story has long been colored by the immeasurable esteem in which I hold those episodes. (I generally consider them my favorites out of all the B:TAS installments.)

BATMAN #237

"NIGHT OF THE REAPER!
Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Story by: Denny O'Neil
(From an idea by Berni Wrightson with an assist from Harlan Ellison)
Edited by: Julie Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

I always like when old comics tell you on the cover that you're about to read a "novel" or a "novel-length" adventure/thriller/etc. It really just means the story fills the entire issue (i.e. no backup stories, which were typically included in both BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS around this period). It's one of those sort of quaint cover blurbs which I find a little corny nowadays, but love anyway.

And a novel-length tale this is. (Though technically it does not fill the issue's page count since this was a double-sized installment -- but it does run the length of a single full-issue story.) Set on Halloween in Vermont, it opens with Dick Grayson and some college friends on their way to a party. But when the boys stop a mugging, Dick changes to Robin to pursue the assailants. He finds the corpse of a man in a Batman costume, then is attacked by someone dressed as the Grim Reaper. The real Batman arrives to find his ward dazed, and brings him back to a nearby mansion where the party is in swing. Batman is in town to track some Nazi war criminals, and the manor's owner is a Holocaust survivor named Doctor Gruener, who recognized the villains in the first place.

From here, the story shifts to primarily solo Batman action, as the Caped Crusader goes about his business while Robin recovers. Eventually Batman finds the Nazis, who are after their former leader and his cache of gold, but the lead Nazi is killed. Batman realizes his underlings couldn't have committed the crime, and soon unmasks the true killer.

BATMAN #234 & #235

"HALF AN EVIL"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Edited by: Julie Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

At some point in the late sixties, a decision was made to "retire" Batman's classic rogues' gallery for a time. This effort began prior to the first story we read, "One Bullet Too Many", and has been in place since then. In that time, both in the stories we've read and the issues we skipped, Batman has fought common criminals and new super-villains -- but there's been no sign of the classics such as Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and so forth.

My understanding is that the villains were written out due to concerns of overexposure thanks to the Adam West TV series, plus the fact that the comics were going "back to basics" with more (relatively) grounded stories. But whatever the reason, the fact remains that until this issue, it had been some time since Batman had taken on any of his more recognizable enemies -- and even here, the first classic villain brought back is one who did not feature in the TV show.

But Two-Face is definitely a classic foe, having been created by Batman's co-creators themselves, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, in the forties. According to Wikipedia, he was mostly dropped following that decade, appearing only a small handful of times in the fifties and sixties -- I would assume due to his gruesome appearance conflicting with the values of the Comics Code Authority. But now, thanks to the creative duo of O'Neil and Adams, he's back.

DETECTIVE COMICS #411 & BATMAN #232

"INTO THE DEN OF THE DEATH DEALERS!"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Bob Brown & Dick Giordano

"DAUGHTER OF THE DEMON"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Edited by: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

I know I had read the name "Ra's al Ghul" before my first exposure to him as a character -- because I wondered for a few years how his name was pronounced. Then, one fateful day in 1994, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES introduced me to the criminal mastermind called The Demon's Head, and told me the correct pronunciation -- which is, of course "Raysh al Gool". I don't know what the BATMAN BEGINS people were thinking when they had everyone calling him "Roz".

Of course, I still don't know the honest-to-goodness right way to say it; maybe the ANIMATED SERIES folks were wrong and Christopher Nolan got it right. But to me, for the rest of my life, I'll keep on saying "Raysh".

Anyway. Thanks to his sparse appearances on THE ANIMATED SERIES, specifically his debut in "The Demon's Quest" and his cameo in "Off Balance", which preceded it, Ra's al Ghul quickly became one of my favorite Batman villains. It's no surprise; I've always loved "mastermind" types more than any other sort of villain (see my love of Mister Sinister and the original Hobgoblin over at Marvel) -- plus, racist though it is, I've long been interested in the "Yellow Peril" trope. And, while Arabic by birth, al Ghul essentially is exactly that sort of character

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we meet the Demon's Head, we need an introduction to his beautiful daughter, Talia!

DETECTIVE COMICS #408 & #410

"THE HOUSE THAT HAUNTED BATMAN"
Story by: Len Wein & Marv Wolfman | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

Len Wein was twenty years old in early 1971. Marv Wolfman was twenty-four. And somehow they were paired with one of the hottest artists in comics at the time, Neal Adams, to draw one of their very first published stories. (for comparison's sake, Denny O'Neil was thirty-one at this point and Frank Robbins was fifty-three -- while Adams was twenty-nine). But what, you ask, do anyone's ages have to do with the story? Nothing; I just thought it was interesting that these two young whippersnappers worked with Neal Adams just as they were starting their careers.

"The House That Haunted Batman" features our first guest appearance from Robin since he departed the series in the initial issue we examined, BATMAN 217's "One Bullet Too Many" -- which was published over a year prior to DETECTIVE 408. Of course, this isn't the first time the readers of the era had seen the Teen Wonder since then -- he was a regular feature in backup stories in BATMAN, and he had popped by to team up with his mentor in a few stories we didn't look at. But for us, here and now, we haven't seen Dick Grayson in several issues, and we haven't seen Robin at all.

Funnily, the setup for this story will be reused by Denny O'Neil in just a few more months for the start of his Ra's al Ghul saga. Specifically, both this tale and O'Neil's begin with Robin kidnapped from Hudson University and Batman searching for him. But the similarities end with that single sentence. "The House that Haunted Batman" picks up en media res, with Robin already missing and Batman having located the place where he's being held -- while the upcoming "Daughter of the Demon" will show both the kidnapping and Batman's search for his ward.

DETECTIVE COMICS #407 & THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #93

"MARRIAGE: IMPOSSIBLE"
Story by: Frank Robbins | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano
Edited by: Julie Schwartz

Batman's third go-round with Man-Bat -- and the final collaboration between the character's creators, Neal Adams and Frank Robbins -- begins with an impressive demonstration of "Bat-dickery" on the part of our Caped Crusader. Batman reads in the newspaper that Kirk Langstrom is to be married to his fiancee, Francie Lee, and immediately jumps into the Batmobile, drives to the church, and dramatically yanks off Langstrom's false face to reveal the Man-Bat beneath. Doesn't bother to spare the couple any indignity or try to keep Langstrom's mutation a secret. Nope, right there in front of family and friends, he reveals Man-Bat to the world.

What follows is a flashback to the previous Man-Bat tale five issues earlier, revealing the heretofore unseen conclusion -- Batman attempted to cure Langstrom, but he wanted to remain a bat-creature. The Darknight Detective tried to get Francine to talk some reason into Langstrom, but the Man-Bat escaped. Later, Man-Bat found Francine and learned she still loved him. He prepared a duplicate of the formula that had changed him and she took it, transforming into a Woman-Bat.

Batman then battles both bat-monsters, eventually injecting them with an antidote he's been carrying around since sometime after issue 402. They revert to human, regretful over their desire to become monsters and thankful to Batman for saving them, as our hero departs.

DETECTIVE COMICS #404

"GHOST OF THE KILLER SKIES!"
A tribute to the great Joe Kubert & Robert Kanigher
Script: Denny O'Neil | Art: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

It's 1988. You're nine years old. Tim Burton's BATMAN movie is due out next year. BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES is still four years away. You've "grown up" (insomuch as a child can be considered to have done so) with Batman, but never actually read a comic book featuring the character. Your only exposure to Batman has been via reruns of the Adam West TV show, the Filmation cartoon, and SUPER FRIENDS. But you've come to like the character quite a bit through those incarnations, and somehow you wind up with a copy of THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD, a trade paperback (published by Warner Books rather than DC Comics) collecting, ostensibly, some of the best bat-material of the past four decades.

So you start reading. You merely skim some of the early chapters because the artwork doesn't appeal to you. But soon you find yourself reading stories from the fifties and sixties. This is the Batman you recognize from TV. Colorful! Fun! Battling zany villains and accompanied at all times by Robin, the Boy Wonder!

Then you get to page 162, and suddenly things change. The artwork is more realistic. Batman looks different; longer ears, darker colors. The tone of the story is considerably moodier than what came before. Robin is nowhere to be seen. And, on the very first page -- murder! A mystery unfolds! You've seen Batman solve mysteries before, in the stories earlier in this book, but you've never seen him try to unravel a murder. Before the story is done, two more people have died. You wonder if you're supposed to be reading this stuff! Did they slip some kind of "grown-up" Batman story into this book by mistake? What would your parents say if they knew you were reading about people getting strangled to death?

DETECTIVE COMICS #400 & #402

"CHALLENGE OF THE MAN-BAT" | "MAN OR BAT?"
Story: Frank Robbins | Art: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

For the vast majority of his Batman output in the seventies, Neal Adams worked with Dennis O'Neil as writer. But he did illustrate scripts from a few others as well: Mike Friedrich, in a Christmas backup story we skipped. Len Wein and Marv Wolfman, and then Wein alone, in a pair of stories we'll eventually cover.

And, of course, Frank Robbins. According to Adams in the introduction to BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS Volume 2, Robbins had expressed interest to editor Julie Schwartz in working with Adams. Adams, meanwhile, had been doodling and come up with a character called Man-Bat. Adams and Robbins crossed paths at the DC offices, and Adams asked Robbins to write the creature's debut appearance -- which brings us to "Challenge of the Man-Bat" and its sequel, "Man or Bat?"

In the first story, Batman fights a group he calls the "Lights Out Gang", who commit robberies in complete darkness. When they bait Batman into a trap at Gotham's natural history museum, the Caped Crusader is joined by a mystery bat creature to fight them. The gang is defeated in the end, and Man-Bat escapes into the night.

DETECTIVE COMICS #395 & #397

"THE SECRET OF THE WAITING GRAVES" | "PAINT A PICTURE OF PERIL!"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Note: Screenshots below come from BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOLUME 2 and are not representative of these stories' original colors (the covers are presented as published, however).

Last week's "One Bullet Too Many!", by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick, and Dick Giordano, set up the status quo which would define Batman for the full decade of the seventies (and even in to the early eighties) -- but it's DETECTIVE COMICS 395's lead story, "The Secret of the Waiting Graves", which I've seen identified in more than one place as the tale that set the mood for the upcoming decade. Certainly it unites the Caped Crusader's definitive creative team of that era, in Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams.

And there definitely is a mood here! While "One Bullet Too Many" was a decent introduction to the setup of the seventies and the sorts of Batman stories the decade would present, it also felt very straightforward and not all that different from what had come before. Even though the action was set mostly at night, it was still a fairly bright four-color adventure. But thanks primarily to Adams' artwork, "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" and "Paint a Picture of Peril" both drip with the sort of dark, gothic atmosphere one would expect from a Darknight Detective.

GREEN LANTERN #89 AND THE FLASH #217-219 & 226 (BACKUP SERIAL)

Script: Denny O’Neil | Art: Neal Adams | Editor: Julie Schwartz
Inks: Dick Giordano (backup serial only)

“…AND THROUGH HIM SAVE A WORLD…”

And then GREEN LANTERN was cancelled…!

I always find it bizarre when a series I consider to be perennial is cancelled or even on the verge of cancellation. Around the mid-seventies, DETECTIVE COMICS hovered at the edge of oblivion, and I believe it was only the belief that DC simply couldn't cancel the comic their company was named after which kept it afloat. Over at Marvel, by the eighties, CAPTAIN AMERICA hovered just under the axe, and I believe the same held true for DAREDEVIL in the seventies. And then of course there's X-MEN, which while not outright cancelled, was reduced to being a reprint magazine in the early seventies.

Such would be the fate of GREEN LANTERN as well, as not even the socially relevant stories of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams could save it (which I believe lends some credence to my belief that kids have no interest in, nor any need to know about, a lot of the stuff covered in this run).

GREEN LANTERN 89 is the series’ final issue, and ugh – it may well be the single preachiest, most ham-handed installment of the entire O'Neill/Adams run, and that title comes with some stiff competition. The story involves out heroes meeting up with a young man named Isaac, who's been vandalizing a Ferris Aircraft plant over the pollution it causes. By our tale’s end, Isaac – who bears a passing resemblance to Jesus Christ – has crucified himself outside the plant in protest and died overnight as Green Arrow and Green Lantern are unable to save him.

GREEN LANTERN #87

Script: Denny O’Neil (story A) & Elliot Maggin (story B)
Art: Neal Adams | Inks: Dick Giordano (#87) | Editor: Julie Schwartz

“BEWARE MY POWER” | “WHAT CAN ONE MAN DO?”

Well, you learn something new every day, and for me today, it's this: until the very instant I looked at this issue’s cover before reading the stories inside, I never had any idea that John Stewart was created by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams. For whatever reason, I thought he came along later and was perhaps the brainchild of Steve Englehart during his GREEN LANTERN CORPS run from the eighties.

Anyway – GREEN LANTERN (co-starring Green Arrow) #87 splits the title heroes into two separate solo stories. In the first, Earth’s backup Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, is injured during an earthquake and the Guardians choose architect John Stewart as his replacement. Hal Jordan spends the story training Stewart and even forces him to protect a bigoted senator at a presidential rally in order to test his devotion to the GL uniform. Stewart comes through, protecting the senator from an assassination attempt (which turns out to be a publicity stunt) and earning Hal’s respect.

I like John Stewart, though pretty much everything I know about the character comes from the JUSTICE LEAGUE cartoon series. Here, in his original incarnation, he's a bit rougher and more quippy than his animated counterpart, but he's still an entertaining character.

GREEN LANTERN #85 – 86

”SNOWBIRDS DON’T FLY!” | “THEY SAY IT’LL KILL ME… BUT THEY WON’T SAY WHEN!”
Script: Denny O’Neil | Art: Neal Adams | Inks: Dick Giordano (#86)
Editor: Julie Schwartz

I think I said this up front when I began this review series, but it bears repeating as we begin a look at this, the best-known story from the O'Neil/Adams GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW run: I don't, as a rule, object entirely to social messages in superhero comics. My objection tends to be more on a case-by-case basis. Look at it this way: when these stories were originally published in 1970-71, comics’ target market was still ostensibly children. And while I do believe children are more complex than we often give them credit for, with their own fears and issues, I don't believe it's the purview of a mainstream superhero comic to introduce them to the concepts of white guilt, overpopulation, or, errm… plastic cities.

But by the same token, I do believe that superhero comics should teach appreciation for all races and creeds, and they should certainly tackle problems which the children reading them might actually encounter. No child will give a second thought to overpopulation. It means nothing to them. But do a story about, say, bullying or drugs, and then you're sending a message which your target audience can comprehend and appreciate, and which may actually resonate with them.

Which brings us to GREEN LANTERN issues 85 and 86. The story follows our heroes as they chase down the junkies who mugged Green Arrow using a crossbow that fired one of his own shafts at him. This quest leads them to Arrow’s ward, Speedy, among the junkies. As the cover to part one implies, this story hinges largely on GA actually being a little ignorant — or at least blind — as he initially assumes Speedy is undercover and never once guesses the awful truth revealed on the final page (and totally spoiled by the cover): Speedy is a junkie himself!

GREEN LANTERN #82 – 84

Script: Denny O’Neil | Art: Neal Adams | Editor: Julie Schwartz
Inks: Dick Giordano (#82-83) & Berni Wrightson (#82 assist & #84)

“HOW DO YOU FIGHT A NIGHTMARE?”

My theory last week that the "social relevance" angle was a six-issue experiment seems to be borne out by this installment, which is a simple, message-free superhero adventure featuring Sinestro using Green Arrow and Black Canary as bait to spring a trap for Green Lantern. The entire tale is set at night, giving it the moody atmosphere I most associate with the O'Neil/Adams team from their Batman stories, and that, combined with the presence of a genuine supervillain, makes this easily my favorite installment of the run so far.

A few observations: Apparently Sinestro has a sister, who aids him here in his scheme. No idea if this was her first appearance or not. Green Arrow notes that he “used to be rich”. I was well aware that the classic version of Oliver Queen was a wealthy playboy a la Bruce Wayne, and that by the eighties he had been stripped of his wealth, but I had no idea that aspect of his character had been done away with so much earlier. I always figured it was an invention of the Mike Grell/"Longbow Hunters" era of the character. And lastly, it suddenly occurs to me that Black Canary only ever uses judo against her enemies in these stories. I haven't seen her use her sonic scream at any point. I assume the character must have lacked that ability during this period, but I've no idea whether it was a power she’d once had and lost, or whether it simply hadn't been created yet.

GREEN LANTERN #79 – 81

Script: Denny O’Neil | Art: Neal Adams
Inks: Dan Adkins (#79) & Dick Giordano (#80 & 81) | Editor: Julie Schwartz

“ULYSSES STAR IS STILL ALIVE!”

Still in Indian country, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and their Guardian colleague become involved in the struggle between a tribe and a pair of men named Theodore Pudd and Pierre O’Rourke over logging rights. The heroes disagree on their course of action and go their separate ways, Green Lantern looking for legal recourse while Green Arrow teams up with Black Canary to pursue extralegal remedies.

Our heroes are drawn back together when Green Lantern shows up at a standoff between the tribe and the loggers with a U.S. congressman in tow, to find the Indians fighting back alongside the so-called spirit of their late tribal hero, Ulysses Star. The ghost is unmasked as Green Arrow, and he GL have a drag-out fight to settle their philosophical debate.

In the end nothing is really hashed out. The corrupt loggers are arrested for arson (a component of Green Lantern’s investigation) while the tribe finds themselves living in squalor as always.

Along the way, Green Lantern, who has shown some doubts over his usual approach to heroism in recent chapters (and even in this one) remains true to himself by following the letter of the law, which is a nice touch from O'Neil, who so far has seemed mostly concerned with knocking the series’ star down a few pegs.

GREEN LANTERN #76 – 78

Script: Denny O’Neil | Art: Neal Adams
Inks: Frank Giacoia (#77 & 78) | Editor: Julie Schwartz

“NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT!”

Right off the bat, our socially relevant excursion begins on something of a false premise. Green Lantern arrives in Star City to visit with his colleague, Green Arrow (and were they ever especially close prior to this run of issues?) but first bumps into a young man roughing up an older gentleman. Naturally, GL takes the older guys’s side and sends his assailant off to police headquarters for booking, which results in the area’s remaining citizens promptly pelting him with trash.

Green Arrow appears and explains that the fellow GL just saved, Jubal Slade, is a slum lord with plans to demolish the tenement housing the young man who attacked him, along with numerous other Star Citizens. Arrow takes GL on a quick tour of the building, which leads to our afore-mentioned false premise: an older black man confronts the Lantern, calling him out for working for “the blue skins” and helping the “orange skins” and “purple skins” but doing nothing for the black skins. Ashamed, Green Lantern has no rebuttal.

John Byrne, not exactly renowned for his racial sensitivity, nonetheless has an excellent point about this scene: Green Lantern has saved Earth countless times. He has saved the entire human race countless times. He has, therefore, saved the “black skins” countless times. He is above such things as petty racism. He routinely battles threats of intergalactic proportions. Going out of his way to help any particular race is absurd because he goes out of his way to help the entire human race every day.

GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW

I'll be the first to admit that I can be curmudgeon in some ways; I'm a guy who generally doesn't like to see social issues as the primary raison d'etre for any comic book story. I don't mind when nods to society's ills are slipped into a tale that's otherwise about something else entirely (see Storm discovering her childhood home is now a junkie-infested slum in UNCANNY X-MEN 122 or Wolverine scaring Kitty Pryde off smoking in issue 196), but I really don't get why anyone, child or adult, would want to read an entire superhero story about drugs or homelessness or whatever.

So now I'm about to cover a beloved run by two legendary comic superstars, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, dedicated to just that premise.

I've owned the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW trade for about four or five years now, but I've never quite been able to bring myself to read it. I've grabbed it off the shelf about three or four times over that span with the full intention of doing so, but just haven't found the will to crack it open -- and I think the main reason is that I love O'Neil and Adams on Batman. L-O-V-E. They crafted some of the most definitive and enjoyable Batman tales of all time. And because of that, I've had trouble jumping into what I'm pretty sure would quickly devolve into a "hate-read" of their other legendary run together.

Make no mistake -- I'm going into this thing with an agenda. I don't want to have one, but it's not like I can just force it out of my head. I'll do my best to be even-handed, but I fully expect to dislike the non-stop bleeding heart fest I'm about to cover for the next several weeks. Hopefully I don't scare anyone away in the process because I think I've got some pretty fun stuff planned after this run is over!

MY FIVE FAVORITE COMIC BOOK ARTISTS

It's been some time since I did a little list like this, but for whatever reason, not long ago I was thinking about which artists I consider to be my favorites of all time in the comic book field. It honestly didn't take much thought at all to come up with five; these guys all came to mind immediately with very little head-scratching or consideration over anyone else. So in alphabetical order, here they are:

• Mark Bagley: I first encountered Bagley as the regular artist on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN when I became a regular ongoing reader with issue 360 (which was a fill-in, but Bagley returned for the next installment). At the time I wasn't all that enamored with him; he seemed to draw people's heads too small for their bodies sometimes, and as his time on AMAZING went along, he drew Spider-Man's eyes larger and larger until they seemed to take up about 75 percent of his head. But over the years, on THUNDERBOLTS and his subsequent work for Marvel, I've come to love his expressive style. I really like the way he draws musculature; his characters are all sinew and strength, and I love the way he draws faces these days. Plus, in Tom DeFalco's COMICS CREATORS ON SPIDER-MAN book, he admitted that he loves drawing "big, strong buxom women", which is always a plus in my book. Bagley is one of only two artists who I will always check out on Marvel Unlimited even if I have no interest in reading the actual issue he drew (the other of those two is #3 below).

THE DEMON'S QUEST REVISITED

A while back I noted that I like to draw, and that lately I've been doing it on my iPad. Well, since the advent of the Apple Pencil, which my wife was kind enough to get me as an early Father's Day present back in May, I've really been having a lot of fun, and I've even been posting some stuff to DeviantArt (linked off to the left-hand side there).

But, as I also noted before, every so often I draw something that I'm really proud of and with which I'm pretty satisfied. It's rare, but it happens, and this is such an occasion -- so I figured I'd share. Ever since the BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES volume 4 soundtrack came out, more or less coinciding with the birth of my son, I've been in a TAS mood and I've spent a number of late nights with the baby streaming episodes on my iPad (more on that next weekend, by the way). One of my all-time favorites is "The Demon's Quest", based upon "Daughter of the Demon" from BATMAN #232 and "The Demon Lives Again" from BATMAN 244, both by the venerable Dennis O'Neil/Neal Adams team.

So for whatever reason I was wondering what the cover to BATMAN 232 would look like in the ANIMATED SERIES style. This led to a furious week or so of work last month, which resulted in the following: